Notes

There are only twelve notes in Western music, and everything is build from those notes. Almost every rock or pop song you ever heard is based on only those twelve notes.

In the twelve notes there are seven 'natural' notes, and they are depicted by the first seven letters of the alphabet. These notes are forming the seven-note scale, which has been used in Western music for centuries. This scale is called the 'diatonic scale', and it is the basis for most Western music.

When we reach the end of these letters, we simply start over again. We then have the same notes, but an octave higher. The A in the next octave has exactly double the frequency of the A below it, it sounds the same, just higher. This works in both directions, and is true for all notes. The note an octave lower has exactly half the frequency.

Playing these notes one after another sounds just right to us. But when we take a closer look we notice that there is not the same 'distance' between the notes, meaning their pitch is not the same amount apart. Don't worry about the specific distances, but notice how between B and C, and E and F there is only roughly half of the distance between them compared to the distances of the neighboring notes.

We call the bigger distances a 'whole step', and the smaller distances a 'half-step'. We will depict whole steps with ⚫, and half steps with ⚪ . Between B and C, and E and F there is only a half step, in between the other notes we have whole steps.

Wherever there is a whole step, we can fit another note in between. These notes are called 'accidental' notes, and by adding one into each of the five whole steps, we get our total of twelve notes. The names of the 'accidental' notes are derived from the two neighboring natural notes. That means each accidental note has two names. The name derived from the lower natural note, that is the note to the left of the accidental note, is the name of the neighboring natural note plus the word 'sharp', because it is higher in pitch. The second name is the name of the higher natural note, that is the note to the right of the accidental note, plus the word 'flat', because it is lower in pitch.

For example, the note between A and B can be referred to as 'A sharp' or 'B flat'. To denote a 'sharp' the symbol ♯ is commonly used, for 'flat' we use ♭. That means the 'accidental' note between A and B is A♯ or B♭. Which name is used depends on the context, but more on that later. No matter which name we use though, it is the identical note.

Between B and C, and between E and F there are no accidentals, simply because there is no 'space' to fit another note. There are however occasions when an alternative name for natural notes is being used, for example we could refer to B as C♭. C♭ is not a note in between B and C, but exactly the same note as B.

The seven natural notes plus the accidental notes in between complete our list of all twelve notes.

Or, if we use the 'flat' name for all accidental notes, our twelve notes look like this, but are still the identical twelve notes, just named differently:

We now have all twelve notes, and we can use them to play music. This complete set of notes is called the chromatic scale, and it is the basis for all Western music.

Let's take a look on how the notes are represented on instruments, to get a more practical understanding.